Japan Next-Generation Farmers Cultivate Crops and Solar Energy

October 11, 2013

Renewable Energy World.COM

11 October 2013

Farmers in Japan can now generate solar electricity while growing crops on the same farmland. In April, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) approved installation of PV systems on existing, crop-producing farmland. Previously solar generation on farmland, productive or idle, was prohibited under the Agricultural Land Act.

This co-existence or double-generation is known as “Solar Sharing” in Japan. The concept was originally developed by Akira Nagashima in 2004, who was a retired agricultural machinery engineer who later studied biology and learned the “light saturation point.” The rate of photosynthesis increases as the irradiance level is increased; however at one point, any further increase in the amount of light that strikes the plant does not cause any increase to the rate of photosynthesis. Read more